Get to Know Quint Studer

Quint Studer has truly lived the American Dream to its fullest extent. 

He has gone from youth-age challenges to a nationally renown, difference-maker within the health care industry – both as motivational speaker and advisor — along with being a best-selling book author, impactful business entrepreneur, community growth leader and owner of two teams in Minor League Baseball.

It’s a lot and Quint Studer has achieved a lot through the nation. 

Born in 1951, Studer was raised by hard working parents in La Grange, Illinois, a suburban Chicago community located 13 miles west of the city. 

His father worked 41 years for General Motors in a variety of roles. His mother was a nursey school teacher. Quint overcame numerous challenges as a child, including a speech impediment that caused him to often leave grade school classrooms for therapy. He struggled to advance in the early grade school classrooms. 

The hardships affected his academic performance and when he graduated in 1969 from Lyons Township High School in La Grange, he did not have a college option until the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater accepted him and provided an opportunity. 

Studer took that opportunity to earn a master’s degree and began a career as a special education teacher. From that point, he launched a career as a hospital administrator, rising to CEO, then forming his own company, The Studer Group, which led to beginning an ultra-successful career as business entrepreneur, community leader and minor league baseball owner. 

He overcame a battle in the mid-1980’s against alcoholism and his future took off with success in healthcare administration, including President at Baptist Hospital in Pensacola, FL. All the while, he became a best-selling author, including publication of more than a dozen books, and is now a nationally renown leader in the health care industry and community development expert. As a professional baseball owner with two teams, he serves on an Minor League Baseball operations committee with Major League Baseball executives. 

His life has taken many paths, he’s scaled a variety of mountains in defining his success. 

Here is how it all began. 

“The only legacy we leave behind is those we teach.”

– Quint Studer

Quint Studer's 3rd Grade class with Mrs. James.

Early Years

Elementary school did not come easy for Quint Studer. His speech impediment affected self-esteem and learning progression. He was unable to read effectively in second grade. At age 9, he was still undergoing speech therapy that required him to miss class time and feel shunned from fellow students. 

In his best-selling book, Hardwiring Excellence, which was published in 2003, Studer credits two elementary school teachers in La Grange, Illinois for boosting his confidence and ultimately changing his life. 

Quint Studer's 3rd Grade class with Mrs. James.

His third grade teacher, Mrs. James, helped inspire him. She got him to perform a skit in front of the classroom and guided him into standing and speaking that he later credits for providing the foundation to become a motivational speaker in front of hundreds of people. 

His sixth-grade teacher, Mr. Fry, provided Studer the value of seeing the positive and ignoring the negative. He kept encouraging Studer as a student by accentuating the positive in behavior and class performance. The teacher saw the good elements in Studer and focused on those to help spur him. This important value has been carried by Studer throughout his life and help formed who he has become as a business leader. 

When he got to high school, Studer felt too insecure to attempt playing any sport. But he chose to join the soccer team, the one team back then at his high school that did not cut players from the team. His coach, Mr. King, shaped his life in soccer practices and games by praising Studer for what he did well. It is something Studer never forgot and made a principle element of his business leadership. 

As a high school senior, fellow students encouraged Studer to take the ACT exam as a last-ditch effort to land a college acceptance. He scored well enough that the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, which had history of giving willing students a chance, accepted him for pursuit of an education degree. 

Four years later, Studer was a college graduate, then earned a master’s degree. It led to Studer working as a special education teacher for 10 years at Parker High School in Janesville to begin his working career. 

“When people ask me the key to leadership, one point I bring up each time is to ‘be yourself’.”

– Quint Studer

Quint Studer speaking about healthcare

Healthcare Rise

In December 1982, Studer hit bottom in his life. He was battling an alcohol addiction. He realized it was a now-or-never crossroads moment for his life. 

He sought help and committed on a path to stay free from alcoholic beverages. He began his rise. Shortly thereafter, he was hired by the Parkside Lodge in Janesville, Wisconsin, a small facility specializing in helping alcohol and substance abuse patients. 

Three years later, after helping others get on the right path, he was hired by Mercy Hospital in Janesville.

In 1984, he married Rishy, a Chicago-area native and Wisconsin-Whitewater graduate, who put her own successful career on hold while Quint began his rise as a hospital executive.

The two did not know each other while in college. They met in Janesville. The couple celebrated their 38th wedding anniversary in 2022. 

Quint then rose from vice president of planning and marketing at Mercy Hospital to senior vice president of business development. 

His success at the hospital led to his next big move – back home to Chicago — when he became in January 1993 the senior vice president/chief operating officer at Holy Cross Hospital. The previous year the hospital lost $9 million. In the three years as COO of Holy Cross, Studer turned around the entire operation. 

In 11 months on the job, Holy Cross climbed into the top quarter percentile for hospitals nationwide in customer care satisfaction. The hospital won the Large Hospital Great Comeback of Year Award by Hospital & Health Networks and the American Hospital Association.

That honor and Studer’s amazing work at Holy Cross Hospital led to another life-changing moment. In 1996, he was hired to become president of Baptist Hospital in Pensacola, Florida. 

When Quint and Rishy Studer moved to Pensacola, it was their first time in this region of the country. They fell in love with Pensacola and its community and settled in the future. 

During his four years at Baptist as the CEO, Studer helped lead the hospital to unprecedented heights for customer care and patient satisfaction. Baptist Health Care rose in 1999 to being one of the best in the U.S. in customer satisfaction landing in the top 1-percent of all U.S. hospitals for customer and patient satisfaction. 

It led to him becoming a consultant to hospital companies and eventually leaving Baptist in 2000 to form his own consulting company, The Studer Group in Gulf Breeze, Florida, located just across at 3-mile bridge from downtown Pensacola.

Studer Group rose to a company that worked with more than 850 hospital organizations across the United States, teaching how to achieve, sustain and accelerate excellence in patient care and satisfaction, along with high-level, employee satisfaction within the entire health care organization. 

In 2010, The Studer Group earned the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, which recognizes a U.S. business, health care organization, education or non-profit sector for performance excellence. The Baldrige Award is the highest award of performance excellence in public-private business presented by the President of the United States. 

Other awards followed for Studer Group. INC Magazine presented Quint with its Master of Business Award, making him the only healthcare leader at that time to ever win award

Modern Healthcare twice named Quint Studer among its Top 100 Most Powerful People in Heathcare. 

In 2014, the publication, Advertising Age, presented Studer with its Healthcare Marketing Visionary IMPACT Award, a first time award.

When we know where we are now, we can decide where we want to be in the future.

– Quint Studer

Renowned Author

Renowned Author

During his CEO role with Studer Group, Quint launched a second career as a book author. 

His breakthrough book, Hardwiring Excellence, was published in 2003 and rose to become a Business Week national bestseller. The book has since been acclaimed as one of the best ever published on healthcare.

In this book, Studer describes his creation of the Healthcare Flywheel, core values turned by three main components: Principles, Pillar Results, Passion. 

Renowned Author Quint Studer

The “Triple-P” can be applied not only in health care, but throughout the business world. Within the Healthcare Flywheel, which is trademarked, are three values Studer details as the hub of the flywheel: Purpose, Worthwhile Work, Making A Difference.

While this book was designed for the healthcare industry, the components Studer describes are transferable to any business. 

Studer followed this book with another entitled, “Results That Last: Hardwiring Behaviors That Will Take Your Company To The Top.” Published in October, 2007, this book rose to No. 7 on the Wall Street Journal Bestseller List. 

He followed with other books: Straight A Leadership and A Culture Of High Performance, that became must-reads in the health care industry. 

In 2012, Studer published “The Great Employee Handbook: Making Work And Life Better.” This book was specifically produced with short chapters and each with elements and guidelines that could be applied across all levels of business. 

In 2018, his book, “Building A Vibrant Community,” detailed how small and larger cities can grow and prosper by attract young talent and providing elements that make a work force proud of where they live. In 2019, Pensacola earned distinction as winner of  “The Strongest Town Contest,” presented by StrongTowns.org. 

While traveling from coast to coast to communities seeking to improve, Studer used Pensacola, Florida as the model and detailed how Pensacola was caught in a crisis in 2005, after devasting damage wrought by Hurricane Ivan. From that point, and with help of Studer and other business leaders, Pensacola rebuilt and rebranded itself into a city that grew and thrived beyond anyone’s expectations. 

He then published in 2019, “The Busy Leader’s Handbook,” which reached No. 5 on the Wall Street Journal Bestseller List. He followed in 2021 with “The Calling: Why Healthcare Is So Special,” which is a unique book detailing his personal examples of the why behind so many health care initiatives and best practices. 

In each of Studer’s books, he uses his own life experiences to reinforce important points and gives a reader a relatable understanding of why this particular element is so important. 

People generally want to do a good job, giving them a roadmap will set you both up for success.

– Quint Studer

Blue Wahoos Owner Quint Studer

Baseball Ownership

Quint and Rishy Studer never sought to become involved in the business of professional baseball. Instead, it happened from a chance experience one night with family. 

In the July of 2002, the Studers chose to attend a Pensacola Pelicans game in the first year of the Independent League team’s existence. The game was at Pensacola Junior College. The Studers had never been to a minor league level game, much less one within the fledgling Independent Leagues. Quint grew up in the Chicago area as a Chicago Cubs fan. Rishy’s loyalties were with the Milwaukee Brewers.

They were wowed at the family-friendly experience the Pelicans provided. It led to Studer eventually purchasing the Pelicans and taking the team through a nine-year odyssey that carved a niche in the Pensacola community.

That led to Studer getting involved in 2005 with the Community Maritime Park project and helping spur a private-public funded project that included building a bayfront baseball stadium on once-deserted land. 

To make it happen, the Studers invested millions of dollars from their own assets to ensure the ballpark would be built. They also paid tens of millions of dollars so Pensacola could gain transfer rights from the former Carolina Mudcats – then the Cincinnati Reds affiliate – as well as pay to break an exclusivity agreement with neighboring Mobile BayBears in the Southern League and pay to put a replacement team in North Carolina. 

All of this massive investment enabled Pensacola to become a pro franchise directly affiliated with Major League Baseball for the first time in more than a half-century. 

The 5,038-seat stadium, offering spectacular views of Pensacola Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, opened in 2012 as the home of the Pensacola Blue Wahoos, the new Southern League, Double-A level affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds. 

The stadium became a driver for retail and residential development throughout the downtown area. From its unveiling in 2012, it was a proud community showplace that won national awards as the best ballpark in Minor League Baseball, but also an engine for growth in Pensacola’s entire downtown area. 

The franchise spent its first seven years as a Cincinnati Reds affiliate, then one season in 2019 as the Minnesota Twins’ Double-A affiliate, before a long-term agreement was signed in early 2021 to be the Miami Marlins’ Double-A affiliate.  

The franchise success led Quint and Rishy Studer in 2020 to complete purchase of the former Beloit Snappers franchise in Beloit, Wisconsin. The Snappers were members of the High-A Midwest League and were on the list of teams to be eliminated when Major League Baseball took over operations of Minor League Baseball prior to the 2021 season. 

The Studers helped save baseball in Beloit, a community close their hearts from having a home and family living in that area of the state. They partnered with ABC Supply Company, owned by billionaire businesswoman Diane Hendricks, and headquartered in Beloit, to build a new 3,500 seat ballpark downtown on the Rock River. 

The Snappers were rebranded as the Beloit Sky Carp and completed their first full season at the beautiful, new downtown stadium in 2022 as part of the revamped Midwest League and affiliate of the Miami Marlins. 

Meanwhile, the Blue Wahoos celebrated a 10-year anniversary in 2022 by winning the Southern League championship as a Miami Marlins affiliate.

Make it one of your company’s values to question all processes. Never stop looking for ways to make them better.

– Quint Studer

Entrepreneur Growth

Entrepreneur Growth

The growth and financial success of the Studer Group enabled Quint and Rishy Studer to invest in other business entities. 

In Pensacola, it began with the Bodacious Olive, which opened in May 2012, one month after the first baseball game that year at Blue Wahoos Stadium, located three blocks away.

Their vision was every vibrant community has a centerpiece corner of its downtown. In Pensacola, that became Main Street and Palafox Street where Bodacious Olive was created in a historic building. It then became Bodacious Shops, which included a culinary store and breakfast-lunch café, along with the Brew-Thru, a drive-in coffee shop.

Entrepreneur Growth

In November 2016, the Studers invested $2 million to help create Bodacious Shops of Block 42 in Janesville, Wisconsin, complete with a ribbon-cutting ceremony held in time for the holiday season that year. 

That same year, groundbreaking occurred in Pensacola for the Southtowne Apartments, following Quint Studer’s purchase in 2013 of the former Pensacola News Journal building and printing press on 101 East Romana Street. 

The 385-unit complex became the first downtown, high-rise apartment complex built in Pensacola. Studer then expanded with a smaller apartment complex, Savoy Place, located exactly one mile away at the corner of Belmont-Devillers Streets. 

Within the same five-year span, Quint and Rishy partnered to create the Five Sisters Blues Café, located across from Savoy Place. 

In 2015, Studer sold his company, Studer Group, which had grown to 250 employees and more than 1,000 healthcare organizations across the U.S. to continue his focus on community investment and business creation. 

In 2016, Studer partnered with Bubba Watson, a two-time Masters champion and winner of 12 PGA Tour events, to open Bubba’s Sweet Spot, an ice cream, candy and confections store on Palafox Street. The store would move in early 2022 across the street to be in the same line as the Bodacious Shops. 

In 2017, the Quint and Rishy completed purchase of Pensacola’s former SunTrust Bank tower, the tallest building downtown. It became the Studer Community Institute building and contained a full lineup of other businesses in the community. 

Next, the Studers opened the Bodacious Bookstore and Café within the Southtowne Apartments complex. They refurbished a former, iconic bar, Trader Jon’s, to create 5-Eleven Palafox, an event space able hold weddings, receptions, special parties and other private gatherings within the community. 

In 2021, the Studers purchased the former Lee House bed and breakfast inn on Pensacola’s Bayfront Parkway and transformed it into the Oyster Bay Boutique Hotel, an upscale option for travelers to stay downtown, yet close enough to Pensacola Beach.  Their daughter, Mallory, became hotel general manager and led an immediate rise in occupancy and revenue.

The best leaders are those who embrace the same set of values both on and off the clock.

– Quint Studer

Local Philanthropy

Local Philanthropy  

Two of Quint Studer’s greatest gifts to Pensacola happened within six months of each other. In May 2016, a groundbreaking ceremony was held at Ascension Sacred Heart Hospital for its new children’s hospital to be named The Studer Family Children’s Hospital. 

The five story hospital, built for a cost of $85 million, became the only children’s hospital in the Northwest Florida and Panhandle region when it opened two years later. It provides specialized care and services for children and families that normally would require a trip to a much larger city. 

In November 2016, the Bear Levin Studer Family YMCA opened for members across from the Southtowne Apartments in downtown Pensacola.

These two major projects were part of the massive gifts the Studers have provided Pensacola. 

In 2015, Quint had the idea to create EntreCon, a two-day conference in Pensacola for small and large business owners to gather and listen to renown business experts from across the nation. The conference is designer for leaders to listen and engage on topics that will grow their company and make Pensacola an even better place to live. 

In 2017, a partnership with the Pensacola News Journal created CivicCon, a series of guest speakers and panelist from across the country speaking on a wide range of topics and issues that affect communities like Pensacola. 

The opportunity gives Pensacola residents a chance to engage and participate in discussions on how to improve the community. 

In Beloit, Studer was honored in October 2022 with the Bridge to the Future Award by the Stateline Community Foundation. It was the 36th year the award was presented by the foundation, “To an individual or organization that best exemplifies the spirit of philanthropy, defined as an effort to increase the wellbeing of humankind.”

Prior to the 2023 season, Quint and Rishy committed to build an interactive playground and literacy garden for children to enjoy at ABC Supply Stadium. 

The Studers invested more than $2 million in downtown Janesville through 2021 to help revitalize the area with the Bodacious Shops of Block 42. 

The Studers also created a $1 million scholarship fund in 2012 for students from the Janesville School District wishing to attend Wisconsin-Whitewater University. 

Their involvement at UW-Whitewater also includes substantial gifts to the school’s College of Education and the UW-Whitewater Foundation for support of a full-time director of strategic engagement.

The way to develop a community is to develop the people.

– Quint Studer

Quint Studer speaking

Currently

In 2022, Quint Studer co-founded the HealthCare Plus Solutions Group (HPSG), which is based in Pensacola and created upon a Five P formula: Purpose + Passion + Precision + Planning + Partnership equals Performance. HPSG focuses on training and development of middle managers, staff retention and recruitment, burnout and overall well-being.

Studer work with various healthcare organizations and hospitals to diagnose their most urgent organizational needs; design smart, collaborative solutions; and create a plan to execute in a way that gets measurable results.

Quint Studer speaking

He is actively involved with Rishy Studer as co-CEO of the Studer Family of Companies, which includes all entities in Pensacola, as well as Beloit and Janesville, Wisconsin.

In addition, his ownership of two Minor League Baseball franchises connects him directly with the Miami Marlins and Major League Baseball, where he serves on an operations committee to ensure team facilities and stadiums are able to meet standards set by MLB.